ICAEW Chart of the week

Today's ICAEW chart of the week, looks at the overall impact of last week's budget on the tax system. Usually the first budget after an election is a tax-raising budget - so how did the chancellor do?

There were 34 tax measures set out in the 2017 Autumn Budget "Red Book". Of these, 21 are expected to increase tax receipts over the next five years (from 2018-19 to 2022-23), while 13 are expected to reduce tax receipts.

Unusually for a first budget the government's overall tax receipts are expected to fall rather than rise, however in practice the changes are actually very small in terms of the overall public finances. In the context of government income expected to average £813bn a year, over the next five years, the budget's tax increases are equivalent to an increase of 0.22% of a year’s receipts, while tax cuts amount to 0.39%. A net reduction of just 0.17%.

This contrasts with the approximately 2% downward revision to total receipts over the forecast period from poorer economic forecasts.

What is clear is that in terms of financial impact, the Chancellor largely left the tax system as it is...